
Mark Rasmussen
International Director
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US$50,000 - US$70,000
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International Director
尼泊爾 十四世紀 銅鎏金守護女尊
The 'Five Protectors', or Pancha Raksha Goddesses, each personify a sacred mantra and early Buddhist text and promote welfare and happiness. This sculptural representation exhibits all the traits of a personal icon that has been propitiated and cherished throughout its devotional career, leaving the goddess with an alluring glossy brown patina. Compare her to an equally worn Durga of similar scale, sold by Bonhams, 18 March 2013, lot 142.
An 11th century eighteen-armed goddess Chunda in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art modeled in the same manner is a clear antecedent to the present lot (Pal, Art of Nepal, Los Angeles, 1985, p.98, no.S18). See also a slightly later Durga in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which shares the same masterful arrangement of fanned arms and superb modeling of the torso (acc.#1986.498). The masterful 13th-century shrine to Durga in the Rubin Museum of Art is also relevant (HAR item no.65433).
Throughout her beautiful array of encircling arms, the present goddess retains a sword, arrow, drum, and skull cup on the right, and bow, kundika, and conch on the left – not quite enough to distinguish her identity among the Five Protectors, for these attributes are common to all, and have inspired more than one iconographic schema. Two earlier wooden panels of a Pancha Raksha goddess with eight arms were sold at Bonhams, New York, 18 March 2013, lot 148 and 29 November 2016, lot 118.
Provenance
Private European Collection
On loan to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1980-85
Sotheby's, London, 14 November 1988, lot 4
Private European Collection
Carlton Rochell Asian Art, New York, 15 September 2010